Stregth

After Mark died, people looked at me all the time and said, “You are so strong,” or “I don’t know how you find the strength.” I always flinched whenever it was said. I think it was meant as a compliment but it didn’t feel like a compliment. It felt like an observation of what the outside of me looked like which bore no resemblance to the inside. The inside had to talk herself out of bed every morning, she crashed into everything, she cared about nothing, and she daily wished she was dead. But the outside had to suddenly manage health care choices, fill out paperwork for life insurance, make decisions about investments, and had to accomplish these things under crushing grief.

A few months after Mark died, I went to the bank to notify them of Mark’s death. As was the norm then, I always carried his death certificate with me. I sat with a bank rep who was so gentle and kind when I told him, he noted it on our account, told me I could keep using the checks I had for as long as I wanted, and when they ran out I could replace them with just my name. I was stunned. I was supposed to order new checks without Mark T. Fisher at the top? His name gets erased from the decades of our hard work and savings?

I had to get out of there but I had a check for $1400 made out to both of us that I needed to deposit. “Well that’s going to be a problem,” the bank rep said, “because we can’t do that without his signature.” I stared at him for the longest time and finally said, “I’m not trying to cash it, I’m not asking you to give me $1400, I’m asking you to put all of this in our account. I’m asking you to take care of this when you can see there is more than enough money to cover this.” After an awkward pause he got on the phone with the higher ups and when he hung up he said,” I’m sorry. You’ll have to send this back and ask them to issue it in your name only. It shouldn’t be a problem but they’ll need his death certificate in order to reissue it.”

I tried to plead my case and when I opened my mouth the only thing that came out was, “I can’t,” and I could not move. I couldn’t stand up, I couldn’t argue with him, I couldn’t get out of the chair. I think I could have kept sitting there after they turned the lights off, locked the doors, and all left for the night. After a very long time he picked the check up from the desk and said, “Let me see what I can do.” A few minutes later he came back with my deposit slip and handed it to me.

Mark used to cycle in a lot of charity rides. He was years ahead of the cycling trend and one of the earliest ones he did was the Tour De BBQ, where the ride went all over town to the local barbecue restaurants. At each stop you could rest, have some water, and sample the bbq before moving on to the next one. Each of these rides required a fee and came with a jersey. When the Tour De BBQ got more popular, and every weekend jock started participating, Mark quit signing up for it. He hated that it had become bumper-to-bumper with amateurs but he saved the jerseys and rotated them with the other ones he wore for his daily ride to work. Because they are as familiar to me as he was, I like to open the drawer and look at them. Often I think, “They’re all still shoved in your dresser drawers, Mark. Come back and put one on and shake me awake from this bad dream.”

Our son had one of his dad’s jerseys at his apartment and decided to bring it back home. It was from the Tour De BBQ and it sat on the couch for several days. I kept looking at it and there was something off about it that I couldn’t figure out. Finally I saw it – on the side where it was supposed to say “Unity Is Strength, it instead said, “Unity Is Stregth,” which I found hilariously funny. I wished Mark were here so I could have pointed it out to him and said, “Can you believe nobody proofread the dang jersey before you guys put it on and rode all over town?”

That is how the inside of strength goes, the unceasing awareness that somebody needs to call the manager and explain that the “n” is missing. That somebody in charge should know that the absence of a single letter makes everything feel precarious, wrong, and on the verge of collapse. But then you realize that even though it’s as plain as day nobody else can see it but you, and over and over it keeps making you stuck and unable to move until you figure out that the only way through is to rest, hydrate, and push on to the next stop.

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